New technologies are and have been developed that involve electrical interfacing with a metal implant temporarily. One such technology involved calls for providing an electrical current through the implant in order to eliminate biofilms from the surface of the metal that would otherwise prove difficult to break up. The challenge is that the implant will already have been placed into a patient, for example implanted in the leg or knee, and the body will have already healed. In such a scenario there is no readily available access to the implant.
This means that in order to contact the implant, leads or wires would have to be inserted through the skin and one or more lead/wire will need to come into electrical contact with the metal implant. One challenge with this technique is that the implant cannot have anything attached to it, because anything attached to the implant may or will alter the functionality of the implant. Another challenge of the temporary contact is that the main needle will have to be placed in physical contact with the implant, and while this can possibly be done by feel or X-ray guidance to ensure lead/wire is touching the metal implant, there is no sufficient existing scheme or method capable of providing direct feedback that the wire/lead is actually contacting the metal implant.
Thus, what is needed is a method and apparatus that allow for the elimination of biofilms from the surface of the metal implant and that overcomes the challenges mentioned above. The apparatus should be that is easy to use, and provide for a way to detect a metal implant so, for example, biofilms can be dealt with in a suitable manner.